


Harper never apologized

by comicxgrl



Category: Happiest Season - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicxgrl/pseuds/comicxgrl
Summary: Harper and Riley leave love letters for each other, until their relationship ends.
Relationships: Harper Caldwell/Riley Johnson
Kudos: 4





	Harper never apologized

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, so I watched “Happiest Season” and got a little bit bitter with the ending. I love Harper but I really ship Riley/Abby, I'm writing something to post here and that was part of it, but it didn't really fit and I didn't want to throw it away so here goes. Oh, it’s Harper POV.

“Dear Harper,  
I'm always looking at you. Especially on Thursdays, I can't stand being away from you anymore. I hope can kiss you today, I always hope kiss you.  
Xoxo, your Riley.”

This was Harper's favorite letter.

They were 16, their time together was basically full of conversation and kisses, lots of kisses. That day Riley went to her slumber party, her mom didn't care that they shared a bed cause she knew Riley was her best friend, so it wasn't strange that it was just the two of them; She wake up next to Riley, they spent the night talking, eating Oreo's and giving sweet kisses. It was perfect. And when Harper wake up she thought her heart was going to explode with happiness, she was sure she could spend the rest of her life like that.

"You're staring at me” Riley said as she opened her eyes. Her voice was different in the morning.

"I was just thinking about us." Harper smiled and Riley looked at her, curiosity on her face.

“You k’now, It’s the first time I have slept here since...” she didn’t complete but gestured with her hand between them “we became...a us” And there was a doubt in her voice, a doubt that Harper was not yet ready to face.

“Weren't we a type of 'us' before?”

“Yes, but-“ Riley didn't complete and Harper decided she didn't want that now

"We are one us” She took Riley's hand and said it to her, more to calm her fears than to stop thinking about what that meant “a big us”

Although it had been a little troubled, the day had been perfect. Then the following week, Harper kept Riley's letter in her notebook. She read it from time to time, and blushed thinking on every Thursday that they could have slumber parties, hold hands and kiss in the dark of her room.

So yeah, she loved that letter.

Until it was careless.

Harper doesn't remember how it happened, maybe slipped of her notebook, maybe flew off the table, but the fact is that when she saw one of her classmates - one she didn't remember the name even years after that - she only remembered what she felt when saw him holding the letter. Dread.

“What the-“ and it was the look he gave to Harper when he finished reading that broke her.

She loved that letter, she smiled and sighed every time she read it, she loved Riley's cursive and elegant handwriting, loved that she left a lipstick mark on the end and even then perfumed the envelope. She loved that Riley wrote something so sweet for her. But that boy didn't see any of that. He looked at her as if to accuse her, an ugly word seemed ready to come out of his mouth and hit Harper like a huff.

“I know, right” she heard herself saying before she could think of what she was doing and stood up going to him. Somehow she knew she was making a face, somehow her heart was hurting and she was trying not to shake “I don't know what to do with it, just want that she leave me alone”

The boy still looked at her suspiciously, even though Harper's stance was one of total rejection.

“What happened?”

No. Harper thought when one of her friends arrived and read the letter, she looked up at the end, a disgusted face. But she wasn’t looking at Harper like that boy, like he was going to accuse her

“Riley wrote that for you?” She said it like it was a state crime

“Yeah, she wrote” Harper heard herself saying and her friend looked at her, that look starting to form in her eyes “I'm not a lesbian!”

Harper was the only one to speak the word, to bring up what it meant.

“Is she a lesbian?” Your friend asked, the boy decided to speak:

“Course is! Look what she wrote about Harper...and they were friends! Disgusting.”

Harper wanted to hit him, wanted to cry, wanted to hit herself, wanted this to be a dream, a nightmare. Not God.

“Riley is a lesbian!” Another boy with the same letter in his hand said.

Harper stood there, testifying when one by one was saying the same thing. She hoped that at least one of them, either, would stop with that tone of voice, that tone of voice was making her stomach churn.

But nothing compared to how things went when Riley arrived at school. It was awful, and Harper had a front row seat. Somehow the headmaster had gotten himself in, and his parents were coming, and Riley's parents too, and Riley was trying to look at her, but Harper kept his eyes on the floor.

The emergency meeting was not good, Harper listened when his mother counter attacked the director; Riley's parents however seemed more concerned about her daughter's condition, she was crying and shaking and her mother was whispering that everything was going to be ok while Riley’s father screamed about the offenses Riley heard.

Harper came home that day and cried like never before. The damage was done, there would be no more Harper and Riley, there would be no more "us" and she knew it was entirely her fault.

Harper then saw Riley's life turn into a hell, no one was crazy about hurting her physically, but they were creative. Riley had no friends, she had no one to pair with at work, she heard whispers start and end when she entered the places, every day throughout high school she was hurt. And she held it all up. While Harper sank into a life of lying surrounded by people. She never apologized to Riley, she couldn't even apologize to herself.


End file.
